The Weaver and His Wife
by Ealcynn
Summary: In which the weaver and his wife give shelter to two unusual travellers in a storm. The Peoples of Middle Earth - Being an account of some small doings of the unrecorded heroes of Middle Earth during the Third and Fourth Age.


Disclaimer - For fun, not profit. No ownership is being claimed.

_T__he Peoples of Middle Earth - Being an account of some small doings of the unrecorded heroes of Middle Earth during the Third and Fourth Age._

The Weaver and his Wife - Fourth Age

_In which the weaver and his wife shelter two travellers in a storm._

* * *

A storm was brewing.

The pressure started in the north. Dark clouds swirled about high in the mountains where the storm was born. It rumbled down across the plains, gathering momentum and charge until a great maelstrom churned in the skies.

In the great cities of men, folk closed up their market stalls and took down the awnings, cursing a lost days trading on the morrow. Wives bundled up the drying washing, and called their children home, looking anxiously at the sky. The King's soldiers and watchmen greeted the rain with more cheer – few wrong doers would stir abroad on a night such as this. They retreated to their posts and watch-houses for ale and dice as the elements howled their fury outside closed doors. Some thought of their families back home.

For the poorer people – the farmers and the hunters in their small villages or isolated farmsteads – few had stone walls to protect them. There, simple folk shuttered their windows and barred wooden doors and huddled together around their crackling hearths, waiting for a respite from natures wrath.

All thanked their gods that they had not been caught out in the hills when the storm rolled in.

lllllllllll

Goodwife Heda deposited the empty pail on her husbands lap and nudged a second with her foot to align it more correctly. The pings of the rain drops on the bottom of the wooden pail quickly turned to splashes as the vessel filled.

"Quick! That one is near spilling!" Heda's husband Dugan cried from his chair, pointing. The woman rushed over to the bowl and quickly exchanged it for another empty vessel.

"It's no good!" She cried, wringing her hands in the fabric of her skirts. "The roof won't hold!"

Dugan looked at her sharply. "None of that, woman! Yowling and howling won't make the thatch any stronger. Now set to, and get those pails emptied."

The poor woman nodded, fighting back her hysteria, and hurried to gather up the vessels that had water lapping at their tops. Dugan hobbled behind her and placed empty bowls where the filled ones had been. It was a slow, frustrating and exhausting process they went through every rainfall, but this was the worst yet. It took the pair so long to move around every leak in the roof of their house, small as it was and filled with the willow whips and baskets of their trade, that there was barely time for Heda to wrestle the shutters open and empty the pails into the howling storm before they had to start again.

It was now near dark and the storm showed little signs of abating. Heda began to sniffle and rub at her eyes. Dugan knew what was coming now. His words were chiding, but his voice kind.

"Now, don't start that. There's enough water in here without adding your own downpour."

"But what if he gets hurt?" The woman wailed, "What if he never comes home? We can't manage without him!" Heda put her hands over her face.

Dugan sighed, turning his face to the shuttered window, hoping for divine intervention. He got lightning, and more rain.

"Come here," he beckoned, and the woman came towards him, sobbing. Dugan held out his hands and took hers. "He's a sensible boy, you know that. He'll stay out of trouble. One day, he'll walk through that door, right as nine pence, and he'll want to see his old ma smiling. Right?"

Dugan could see one of the pails near the sputtering hearth was nearly over-spilling but kept his peace for the moment. His wife smiled slightly through the tears and he tickled her chin.

"That's better. He'll be fine, you'll see."

The smile slid. "You weren't." Heda reminded him.

Dugan looked down, remembering that painful day. "Aye, but I was a daft fool. Cieran, he's much smarter than his old man, you'll see. And he'll make us proud. Come on woman! To the buckets! Let's make sure he still has a home to come back to."

Heda quickly ran to the nearly filled pail and lifted it carefully. Dugan watched as she staggered towards the door. Just as she neared it, three loud knocks echoed from the door, louder than the thunder. Heda started and dropped the bucket.

"What was that?" She cried, water lapping across the floor. "It's orcs, come to murder us!"

"Don't be daft!" her husband snorted. These been no orcs in these lands since the King returned. And would they really be so polite as to knock? Most likely it's a tree branch, caught in the wind."

The words had no sooner left his mouth than the thudding came again, a thundering noise like the drums of a great enemy at war. Heda gave a little shriek. Dugan had to bite back his own nervousness (bandits were well known in these hills), and reached over to pull a rusty axe from its hook on the wall. He would do his best to defend his wife. Once a soldier, always a soldier.

"Heda, someone knocks without."

His wife gave him a frightened look.

"Wife, there might be those in need of our aid. Open the door and see who it is!"

"But Dugan, it could be anybody!"

"Then I'm sure it will be somebody. Go on!"

The woman stood slowly and moved towards the portal.

"Mayhap it is Traga, from up the valley."

"Yes. Maybe it is."

Heda stepped up to the door. Taking a deep breath, she called, "Who is it?" If there was any reply it was lost in the howling wind.

The woman steeled her courage and with a last glance back to her near-helpless husband, opened the door.

A figure stood outside in the doorway. Tall, golden, slender as a young tree, and although soaked to the skin, somehow seemed unmoved by the raging storm about him. He was the strangest and most frightening thing the peasant woman had ever seen. She stared, open-mouthed as the creature spoke, his voice holding an enchanting quality even through the wind.

"Mistress, my companion requires shelter here from the storm. Please grant us admittance to your dwelling."

"Who is it?" demanded Dugan from behind her, and for a few heartbeats the woman had not the wit to respond to either, and continued to stare in shock as the rain soaked them both.

The figure in front of her frowned slightly, clearly concerned for her sanity. "Madam? Are you quite well?" He took a step forwards, and the movement was quite too much for Heda who slammed the door shut in his face.

"What in Harad is going on?" Dugan had found his crutch and was trying to stand. His wife still stared at the wood in disbelief.

"Who was there?"

"There was an elf!" She answered, faintly. "An elf, on our doorstep!"

"A _what?_"

"This is too much!" Heda cried. "First the storm, and the roof and now, now there's a creature out of a story at our door! Freja says they can read your thoughts!"

"Nonsense…"

Just at that moment, the loud thudding sounded again from the door. Husband and wife looked at each other. Heda stepped slowly back to the door and opened it a crack, peering around.

This time, a man stood outside. He was slightly further back, out in the rain and not on the step. He was dirty and bedraggled and sporting several days worth of good beard. He looked a thorough rogue and his down to earth appearance was reassuring. Heda relaxed slightly. She would rather have rogues than mythical creatures.

The man shouted over the wind. "Mistress, good eve! My friend and I were travelling and were caught out in the storm. We beg you grant us shelter tonight! I'm afraid we can offer no payment…"

Heda was shivering and the warm of the house was quickly escaping out into the storm. "It's no night to be outside," Dugan called from inside the house, adjusting the blanket over his legs. Even bandits avoided such weather. "Let them in!"

The man outside shivered too and sneezed loudly, and his pathetic appearance touched the mother in her. Heda stepped back, and beckoned the man inside.

He gave a grateful smile and stepped forward towards the house, throwing a glance to his right. A second figure detached itself from the shadows and was at his side in an instant. The elf. Heda stepped back, afraid, but the strange creature merely took the man's arm and supported him across the slippery mud. She tore her eyes away from the elf and noticed the man was limping, and the wind threatened to knock them both over.

Heda quickly stepped aside and the man passed her with a smile and a nod. The elf hesitated on the threshold, still in the drenching rain, and to her surprise stepped back and bowed low. "My thanks, Mistress, and blessings on this house. I apologise for startling you." He half turned as if to walk back out into the night.

"Wait!" Heda cried, hoping her kindness would not be betrayed. The elf paused. "You may come in too. Just…do not cast any spells upon us. We have enough misfortune."

The creature gave her the most radiant smile she had ever seen. "Mistress, I have neither the ability nor inclination to do so. I thank you again."

He followed her into the house, closing the door behind them.

lllllllllll

The two strangers stood sodden and dripping by the fire, observed by their wary hosts. Dugan was man who had always trusted his first impressions but the pair now standing in his house were a odd dichotomy. The elf; there was a puzzle. Neither the weaver nor his wife had ever seen one before. The little Dugan knew of elfkind came from stories and folk-tales and the ramblings of his old army sergeant who once claimed to have seen an elf when he was posted in Ithilien; (though whatever the man had really seen was probably more a result of the drink than of reality). Dugan wasn't sure he believed all they said about elves, but he was wary nonetheless. The creature was as soaked as the man, but, unlike his companion, seemed unaffected by the cold, flicking back his golden hair, and standing quietly. The dark haired human; Dugan guessed his age at about forty summers; looked rough enough in voice and appearance to be one of the hill bandits so feared in the town, but his words when he spoke, as he did now, were well-mannered.

"We thank you for the graciousness of your hospitality –" He paused to sneeze loudly, and Dugan watched as his wife was spurred into action, mothering the pair mercilessly.

"You're sodden through. Let me take your wet things – here – and come over to the fire."

Heda took the man's wet outer garments and coat and hesitated, but the elf had already hung his own cloak up near the fire so she would not have to approach. The man carefully lifted a stack of half finished baskets from a rough bench and the two sat near the hearth. Dugan took the opportunity to lean the axe behind his chair, within arms reach should the need arise. It would not be well for the strangers to realise his wife was essentially unprotected should their intentions prove not honest. Dugan had already seen neither was wearing an obvious weapon. The man's look of clear relief as he soaked up the heat of the fire was reassuring. The elf's face was unreadable.

"So…welcome," he said. "I am Dugan and this is my wife, Heda." The woman came over and stood by his chair, smiling nervously at him. "It's a poor night for travel, friends…"

"It is that!" Answered the elf softly, as the man coughed, "and again, we thank you for your shelter. I am named Legolas, and my companion here is – Strider." The hesitation was so slight, Dugan thought he might have imagined it.

As soon as names were exchanged, the atmosphere relaxed somewhat.

"Welcome Strider and…Lelol-gas…" Heda was overcoming her initial hesitation. "I have some broth in the larder…it was made yesterday, but I can heat it for you…?"

"That sounds truly wonderful, Mistress Heda," Strider smiled at her, and the weaver watched as the smile revealed a hidden dignity. This man was not as he appeared.

As Heda dashed out to fetch the food, Strider stretched out his long legs and balanced his foot up on his discarded pack. The man saw Dugan watching and smiled again, ruefully. "Sprained ankle," he explained.

"That is what happens when you try to run down a mud covered hillside in the dark, _mellon nin_," spoke the elf, in a tone that might have been amused. "Even you are not beyond rabbit holes."

"It is a poor night for travel," said Dugan again, probing carefully, still wary, as Heda returned with the small cauldron of food to set on the fire. "What took you abroad in such a storm?"

"We were on our way from Gondor to visit my mother's kin," answered Strider, "but after I turned my ankle, the storm came in much faster than we thought."

Dugan leaned forwards. "You have kin nearby? Whereabouts? You do not sound as one from these parts…"

"He is not," answered the elf, smoothly. "His kin moved down from the Northlands."

Dugan was not sure, but it sounded like a lie. Heda moved back over to her husband. "You should be careful travelling in this town! Especially unarmed. There are bandits in the hills."

The elf and man glanced at each other. "So we have learned." Spoke the man. "But I do not wish to deceive you; we left our weapons in your outhouse. We did not wish to cause alarm."

Dugan frowned, alarmed nonetheless. But at least the man was honest. "And you, Lel-" Dugan stopped, the strange name evading him.

"Legolas."

"Legolas. Forgive me, we have never seen elves before in these parts."

"Indeed?" The elf looked slightly surprised. "That is strange. Though there are few of us left."

"So what brings you here?"

The elf seemed unsure how to answer. "I…left my lands to fight here during the Great Wars. For the moment Strider and I are travelling companions."

Heda spoke up again. Her fear of the elf seemed now tinged with fascination.

"So…Strider is your servant, then?"

Both travellers looked stunned, and the elf's laugh was like a peal of small bells. They were old friends, they said, who had known one another a long time, and it was clear to both husband and wife that this was not a lie.

"Strider my servant? No indeed!" smiled the elf. "In fact I would claim it to be closer the other way around…I dare not leave him alone for a moment, he would get into far too much trouble."

The man smacked him playfully. "Me get into trouble? I think it is that statement which is the other way around, my friend…"

Heda laughed, and it was just at that moment there was a loud splash and one of the buckets, overlooked in the excitement, over-flowed and fell to the wooden floor. Heda leapt up with the cry, but the elf moved faster, quickly righting the vessel beneath the stream of water from the roof. The woman moved instead to find a rag to soak up the spreading water. Strider looked around, seeming to note for the first time the leaking roof and near full buckets on every side. He stood up in alarm.

"Alas friends, you sought shelter in a house that barely stands." Dugan said from his chair.

"What has happened here?" Asked Legolas, exchanging two more filled pails for empty ones.

"It's the thatch!" replied Heda, "It should have been replaced seasons ago, but we can not afford to pay the thatcher, and Cieran has gone, and Dugan cannot…" She stopped and looked down in despair.

Both elf and man looked at Dugan with questioning faces, and the man made a decision. He was not too proud to ask for help, especially for Heda, and Strider and Legolas might be able to see them through this storm. He reached for his crutch.

"What my good wife is trying to say is that I can no longer support nor help her." He stood up, and the blanket fell away, revealing the stump of his left leg where the limb finished just above the knee.

"What happened?" Asked Strider quietly, and Dugan was relieved by his tone. Saddened but not pitying. The man had seen injuries such as this before.

"War," the man replied with a shrug. "I was a soldier once. I lost a leg and now I am a weaver who cannot afford to pay for a new roof."

There was a moment's silence, and Legolas spoke up. "Come, Mistress Heda. Together we shall endeavour to save your house from flooding."

Strider, Legolas and Heda set to, and soon they had emptied all the pails and vessels; the man removing the full buckets, Heda replacing them with empty ones and the elf throwing the water out into the storm. The task was soon completed, even in time to rescue the cauldron from the fire that was in danger of burning.

The broth was good, and both elf and man thanked their hosts again thoroughly. As they ate, Legolas indulged Heda's wish to hear a tale of their "adventures", and soon husband and wife were laughing heartily to the story the elf told, even though Strider complained bitterly that the elf was embellishing it in several particulars. Dugan got the impression that the two friends had seen far more dangerous and terrifying events unfold than the light-hearted tale that was told here, and wondered just how old their friendship really was.

"I apologise for my ignorance…" Heda began, hesitantly, "but I would like to ask, is it true that elves cannot die?"

Legolas shook his head, slowly. "My people do not sicken or age as mortals do, but we can be killed by poison, or a broken heart or by a blade in battle…" his eyes flicked to Dugan's stump leg briefly and then away again.

"A…a broken heart?"

The blonde elf smiled faintly. "Sometimes living forever with grief can be too heavy a burden."

"And can elves read minds?" The woman seemed eager for knowledge. "Freja says you can converse with beasts and birds, and that even the trees will walk at your word."

Strider answered this time. "I'm afraid your friend Freja is mistaken. Elves can neither read minds, nor cast spells upon men. They are gifted with a higher affinity with nature, this is true."

"But if any trees ever walked, I can assure you it was not of my doing," smiled the elf again. "Leastways, not directly."

"And…how old are you truly? For you seem as one who is both young and old."

"I have seen the lives of many mortals. I am considered young among my people."

Strider glanced over his shoulder. "Come, the vessels must be emptied once again."

lllllllllll

The hours passed. Buckets were emptied, tales were told and Heda and Dugan found for the first time in many years that they barely noticed the storm outside, entranced as they were by their strange visitors.

Dugan even found himself telling a tale that he had not told in a very long time.

"Yes, I was a soldier once. I spent my youth in the armour of Gondor, and never had a scratch in me in twenty year. Finished my term and returned to my home, to this daft old woman." He smiled at his wife fondly. "We tried living as freeholders for a few years but after the hill bandits took our livestock, soldiering is what I know best. Went back to the life to support my family. Then orc-men began attacking the borderlands, I took an axe to the thigh and lost my leg."

Legolas said nothing, and Heda shifted her chair closer to her husband. "I'm sorry," said Strider, softly.

Dugan shrugged. "I was lucky to keep my life," he answered pragmatically.

There was silence but for the sputtering raindrops. "I heard tell...", said Strider, slowly, "that the King had offered a pension for soldiers who lost their livelihood in the war." Legolas looked at Strider but the man did not turn towards his friend.

Dugan nodded. "Yes, what you say is true, friend. But you see I lost my leg before the Great War and the shire-reeve tells me I do not apply."

Strider raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? Hmm..."

Heda chimed in. "And because of the laws, we have lost Cieran as well..."

"And who is Cieran?" Asked the elf suddenly. "You have mentioned him twice now."

From the distant, proud look on both faces, the answer was obvious before either had to speak it, and the elf smiled. "He is our son," said Dugan, "and this woman is daft over him". His tone was gruff, but the pride was clear there too.

"He is a soldier too?" guessed the other man. Dugan nodded. "I did not finish my second term due to this;" he tapped his knee, "and so my son must complete it for me."

"How long has he left?" asked the elf, just as the roof gave an ominous creak. "It would seem you could do with an extra pair of hands."

"Two years," said Heda with a sigh. Both man and elf frowned.

"Surely," said the elf, and looked at Strider, "the King would not be so unreasonable as to keep in his employ a son who was so needed by his family..."

Strider ducked his head. "Indeed," he said, and looked as if he would say something more, but Dugan cut him off, sternly.

"Here! I know you are guests, but I'll not have any words against the King in this house. He is the reason any of this country stands at all."

Strider and Legolas quickly apologised. "I do not speak ill of the King", said the man, with a smile, "In fact you could say I was his greatest supporter. I would be more loathed than any if something untoward were to happen to him."

"Good," said Dugan, looking slightly placated.

Heda nodded. "King Elessar's a good man. He would not keep sons like Cieran from his family unless there was good reason for it."

"Indeed," agreed the elf. "And perhaps he is as yet unaware of the loopholes in the laws."

Strider nodded, and looked thoughtful. "I'm sure, were he aware, such a thing would be rectified immediately."

"Come," said Dugan. "While we have been talking, the storm has abated, and the night grown old. We should be abed, I am sure you will wish to be on your way with the sun tomorrow." He did not mean to be unwelcoming, but the pair had bought far too many unpleasant memories and emotions back home to him.

The elf and man agreed, and made one more foray into the night to empty the buckets. Dugan retired to the inner room, and Strider was busy laying out the sleeping mats on the floor by the fire, when Heda approached the elf.

"Please..."

He turned, quietly. "Mistress?"

She hesitated. "I'm sorry. I'm only a simple foolish woman, I don't know much of your kind, nor of the courts of lords or somesuch. But I do remember things, and I," she looked embarrassed. He waited patiently for her to continue.

"I know the Queen is of elfkind and now she has a young child, and I remember they said...in the last days of the war the King bought many elf warriors to the battle and nowadays they go about the city and are his friends. I don't suppose...no it is foolish. But I don't suppose...one of them would agree to speak with you? If you asked it?"

The elf made as if to speak, but she carried on.

"I do not want for much!" She said, quickly, "Life is hard for us, but we'll get by. But...I just wish for news of my son! To know he is alright, and..."

Legolas took her hand gently. "I will do what I can to help you." He said gravely.

The woman looked at him with hopeful eyes. "You know one of those elf warriors? Who could get me news of my son?"

The elf smiled slightly. "I believe I know of one who would do. Do not worry."

Heda thanked him, and turned away, missing the smile that passed between the two strangers.

lllllllllll

The next morning when they awoke, their strange guests had vanished with barely a sign they had ever been there at all.

The days came and went. As they prepared their baskets, the husband and wife talked of nothing but their strange enigmatic guests. When Heda went to the village to buy flour, she told Freja and Kild. When Dugan gathered willow-wisps from the riverside he wondered about them. At the tavern and the market they asked, but no-one had ever heard of such a thing. No-one had seen the man and the elf pass through. Of course, no-one believed them either.

Heda didn't tell her husband about the single long white-fletched arrow that had been lying on their wooden table the next morning. The elf himself might have denied his own magical ability, but Freja said that elves granted wishes. Maybe he could do something for hers.

A week passed, and life continued on as it always did. The storm had caused great damage within the village, and everyone who was able did what they could to repair their humble dwellings. Heda and Dugan struggled on, but after the tales of battles and faraway dangers the visitors had told, things didn't seem quite so dreary.

And then things began to happen.

Heda was stood in the doorway sweeping the old rushes from the house when Freja came flying past along the road.

"Heda! Heda!"

The woman ran forwards clutching the broom handle tightly.

"What is it?"

Dugan hobbled from the house behind her, alarmed by the noise.

"Is it bandits? Are we attacked?"

Freja seemed too overcome to speak. "The King's men! There are here, in the village! With a proclamation from the Lord Steward himself!"

Dugan moved forwards, suddenly afraid. "Not war again! Are they conscripting?"

The other woman shook her head. "It's the bandits! They say the King's soldiers have chased them from the hills. They say they are all arrested or fleeing. We're free of them!"

Heda gripped Dugan's hand tightly. "But why should they concern themselves here? We are just poor farmers."

"I don't know!" squeaked the other woman. "But they say the King's elves had magic birds and animal spies up in the hills watching the thieves, and when they went back to the city after the storm and told the King, the soldiers came. It's wonderful!"

It was not, as it turned out, the only wonderful thing that happened in those parts in the next few weeks.

One clear, warm summer's night, while the elven stars were shining overhead, young Ciaran came home to his family. He bore a dazed expression of joy, a pouch with ten times a soldiers wage inside, a white-hafted arrow given to him by Lord Legolas of Ithilien and a message from the King himself to compliment his mother on her cooking.

Someone even came by one night and mended the roof.

The End.


End file.
